Readers of my Linux blog have asked me via mail why this blog is not registered with the domain anracon.de, despite the fact that anracon was associated with my professional freelance activities as an IT-consultant.

The reasons are basically historical. Almost 20 years ago, my wife and I wanted to build up a domain anracom.com with “com” for communication with our customers. This idea never turned out to become true. Partially, due to the nature of our projects. Later my wife registered a small company in Norway and took the domain with her. At this point in time it was somehow too late to change the domain for the Linux blog regarding the impact it would have had on search engines etc. I am sorry for all the confusion this has created.

A second aspect was the following: During my whole professional career in IT most of my customers or employers in Germany were neither interested in Linux, IT-security, virtualization or virtual networking or my respective competencies. “Tu nix mit Unix” was the message that I heard from my first boss at the beginning of the 90s in a German IT-company. Of course, I had and still have a very different opinion. By the way: The mentioned company later lost a valuable mission due to their lack of Unix-knowledge and I was lucky enough to be bought out from my employer by a customer company.

Of course, Unix was exchanged by Linux later on, but the sound of responsible IT-managers of customers and employers stayed the same. The total MS affinity and MS dependency of companies as well as governmental administration in Germany and the related ignorance followed me my whole life – against my firm “private” convictions. I am not sure whether this tells more about my customers/employers than about me.

Anyway, I had to earn money and concentrated on other fields in IT. Many customers also (often rightfully) thought that consulting on SW-projects, project management, ITSM and so on should deliver quality advice independent of the used operative systems. Thus, over time my Linux blog became a private area of non-commercial opinions, ideas and knowledge, off most of my daily business. Linux and activities on Linux platforms in my spare time became something to balance and compensate for other efforts in my professional life. Over many years I was even satisfied with the fact that the Linux blog was hosted on a different domain than my reference domain anracon.de.

Nevertheless, all central elements my personal work equipment (PCs, servers, laptops, …) ran and still run on Linux. And for some Opensource-aware customers I have administrated and secured web- and mail-servers for their web- or PHP/Python-related projects over some years.

Now, both my wife and I myself are retired persons, and we are too lazy to change domains. However, I still study some Linux topics for fun and write about them. So, the Linux blog is still alive. Regarding AI and Machine Learning I will build up a second blog as these topics reach beyond Linux.

I should add that I have seen similar long-term patterns of ignorance of German business and IT-managers also regarding other fields of IT than Linux. Just to name two: IT-/Information Security and AI. Among us Linux users: There is, of course, a connection between Linux and those other topis. You could continue the list with e-mobility, robotics with AI, fiber-optic infrastructure … . Who, by the way was politically responsible when Kuka was sold to Chinese investors despite warnings?

Looking back and regarding real high-tech, characteristic attributes of many (not all!) German managers appear to be: always too late, always very surprised over “sudden” changes of core technologies and required competencies … Accompanied by a continuous row of leading political leaders with a non-technical education as lawyers, business economists and managers, administrators, … Yeah, I noticed a wide-spread and strong aversion between physicists and guys in the named fields already during university studies …

It is also an interesting observation that most of the Linux-blog readers have their residence in the US. I have changed the blog’s language accordingly.